triple boot laptop

owner of DV5T 1009TX, i have a singular 320GB WD on this system, with dual boot enabled (WIN 7 and VHP) thing is i would like to triple boot this systm with an instant on OS (i know presto but it's a paid subscription and sadly does not allow me to access NAS/ battery profiles) so i was thinking of (and do have) a 8GB SSD 34 express slot flash drive (which has a USB 2.0 bus on te motherboard) to install a third OS Ubuntu or something you guys would recommend.......

i am a linux noobie....can't do any of the termainal , scripts based stuff

but i would need to know how it won't bother the MBR shared by M$ OS

i have the CD from cannonical featuring the latest 9.04 distribution of ubuntu

 

An 'instant on' OS pretty much has to be loaded from ROM of some kind.

have you played around with hibernate on your windows installation? It takes a while to go into hibernation but waking up is a snap.

Otherwise, try using virtual machines, Microsoft virtualPC or Sun virtualbox to host your secondary OS installs.

 

The latest version of Ubuntu is 9.10. Installing it will change your MBR, unless you do a manual install. The Ubuntu forums have some procedures. If you do an automatic install, it will change your MBR. You can still run Windows 7, since it will be added to the GRUB 2 menu. Then you can use EasyBCD to change your MBR back to Windows 7 boot loader, and add the Ubuntu Linux to your boot menu.

I would add that Ubuntu Linux is not an "instant on" solution. Depending on your hardware, it still has to load drivers. I haven't timed it, but it does "feel" faster then Windows, but definitely not instant.

 

ok... honest advice.....

to newsposter, virtual machines are a bit much, and hibernation means a laptop prepetually "on"...not my kinda solution....
to walterdt3 you've got triboot system as well right.... so how'd you get access to all three (and can you access Network drives with ease??? from ubuntu.... look a manual install (meaning boot from CD..right... is ok, but i read somewhere it begins to modify the MBR..... how can i ONLY install ubuntu to that 8GB exp34 card....and not have to worry about MBR's...and when i need to i can selectively boot from that disk when i need to get into Ubuntu...and i think ubuntu booting off a "USB" stick should be faster than one booting off the mechanical drive)

i can forgo with the rapid on, so how 'bout a LINUX distro that can

access a network drive (AKA NAS)
access FAT/NTFS partitions (so i can read my documents)
relatively faster boot times (faster than 7, which is pretty ok ....atleast in comparasion to VHP)

 

When I say a manual install, I mean that Ubuntu has an auto install feature. If you use it, it will over write your MBR. From what I have read, if you don't want it to over write your MBR, you have to do a manual install, not use the auto installer.
I had XP and Windows 7 installed first, using the Windows 7 boot loader menu for dual booting. I then installed Ubuntu to the partition on my second drive I had set up previously. I let Ubuntu re-write my MBR. This loaded GRUB 2 loader, and added my Windows 7 loader as the last option. I then used the GRUB 2 loader and booted into Windows 7. Then used the newest Beta version of EasyBCD to re-write the MBR to Windows 7, and add GRUB2 (listed as NeoBRUB) to the Windows boot menu. Now when I turned on my machine, I get the Windows boot menu with 3 items...XP MCE, Windows 7 then NeoGrub.

This page has some info for installation, including not installing the boot loader(Grub): https://help.ubuntu.com/9.10/installation-guide/i386/module-details.html#di-make-bootable


Also see this page: http://neosmart.net/forums/showthread.php?p=44576

As for "access a network drive (AKA NAS)" I have a Synology DS209+II, and can access it from Ubuntu with no problem.


As for "access FAT/NTFS partitions (so i can read my documents)" I don't have any FAT partitions, but I can access my NTFS partitions and my external drive (ESATA using exp34 card)
with no problems.
I did a quick load time check this morning.I started the timer when I pushed enter after selecting the operating system from the boot menu, and stopped when I could start to log in. (Note: for the linux install, it took and extra key stroke, since it installed the GRUB loader, I was ready for it, and don't think it added much time.) On my system, Windows 7 took 54 seconds, and Ubuntu took 44 seconds.

I hope this all helps.

 

Why are virtual machines a bit too much? In most respects they run exactly the same as a 'real machine' and there is no partition manager to worry about.

 

Today, when I updated GRUB2, it installed in my MBR. I don't know if it did this because I originaly installed GRUB2 there, or if the update would have done that regardless. The EasyBCD steps I discussed above got me back using the Windows 7 boot loader.

 

walterd......

you are brilliant man....thank you

and news poster i have had a look at things... i relaised we may have been using a virtual machine for yonks in the place i am working ( i mean i knoew what it was , but did not know what it was exactly ..thousands of PC's all networked across and each and everyone of us has his/her own login desktop enviouro....is that what virtual machines are???)

 

Kind of. A virtual machine starts with a program that emulates PC hardware within an existing system. Once you have that available you can load 'real' operating systems to that emulated hardware as if it were 'real' hardware.

The original OS on your hardware remains fully functional. So say that your primary OS is Windows7. You then add a VM product to Windows7 just like any other applications. It's just that this new application lets you run other operating systems on top of and at the same time as your primary OS. You choose what guest OS runs whenever you need it. You can even run multiple guest OS at the same time. Everything is isolated from each other for safety.

The guest OS can, if you want, communicate with each other and with the outside world via standard networking. The guest OS can share data and files via cut and paste actions as well as a shared folders capability.

The primary limitation is the amount of RAM your host system hardware can hold. But it's not as serious a limitation as it might seem. If your laptop has 4Gb of ram you can certainly run 2 if not 4 guest OS simultaneously.

I run Windows7 as my primary OS. I often fire up a pair of Linux VMs (RedHat or SuSe) along with a Server 2008 VM to demonstrate an Oracle database communicating with a couple of client web browsers. All of this in 4Gb of RAM and a 2Gz Core2D processor.

I set up my Linux machines with a RAM allocation of 512 Mb while the Server 2008 machine gets 768 Mb. Yes, that appears to starve the primary/host OS of RAM. All virtualization software uses aggressive ram allocation and deallocation schemes that let you get more work done with fewer resources.

Running multiple virtual machines is a lot more efficient if your processor supports the Intel or AMD virtualization extension instruction sets. However the emulations also run on processors that do not support these special instruction sets. The difference in performance is something like 10%. One of the things that the AMD/Intel virtualization cpu instructions do is to enable very fast ram allocation/deallocation. I'm not all that up on how this aspect works but it appears to work pretty damned well.

Performance of the virtual machines is 70-90% of running the OS directly on hardware without the virtual/emulated application layer in between. In Sun VirtualBox, you get a very good emulation of OpenGL and Direct2D with experimental Direct3D support coming along quickly.

Your primary/host OS can be just about anything. Microsoft XP/Server 2003 or more recent, nearly any Linux distro, and even MacOS on real Apple hardware. You can run nearly any x86/x64 OS as a client/guest OS. MacOS is not officially supported as a client OS but there are a lot of people who have hacked their MacOS installs to run under Linux and Windows.

Once you have your guest OS loaded to the VM, there are a set of device drivers that should be loaded. The virtual machine manager software includes these drivers and installation to a guest OS is usually a matter of three or four mouse clicks.

For many users, the biggest upside is that you do not have to screw around with GRUB or partitions at all. In an emulated/virtual environment, your hard drives are huge files written to the real hard drive. As such, you can recover 100% of that disk space by deleting the emulated hard drive file. Just Like That. Or you can shrink/grow your emulated hard drives. Snap, it's done.

Or you can take that emulated hard drive file and share it with colleagues.

Or you can take all of your emulated hard drive files, keep them on an external drive, and run them from there.

Or you can take that emulated hard drive file, run it through a utility program, and end up with a bootable ISO that you can then install to 'real' hardware.

All of this and more can be done without rebooting the host machine, without playing around with GRUB, without placing your MBR at risk, etc, etc.

Try it, play with it for a couple of weeks, I think you'll get the hang of VMs pretty quickly.

I use Sun VirtualBox (free) but a lot of people use Microsoft Virtual PC (also free). There are a few other products out there too.

 

well guys, finally did it...i simply installed the Ubuntu on to the 8GB "SSD" in my express slot, i simply removed the HDD and installed directly into the SSD, (i know it would have been easier and simpler to have installed the Ubuntu with the ORig. drv in place, but having to mess with the MBR was too risky given that Win7 is running on optimised services, AND can pick up my NAS so...)

as far as instant boot goes, yup you were (again) right all along, the times are almost similar (no compix installed)


thank you both for the help.....

 

Now that you have Ubuntu installed, can you see your NAS? Does your computer allow you to select the SSD in the express slot as a boot device? How do you get to your Ubuntu if your original hard drive is installed?

 

walterd,

naa man, cannot access NAS

its a Airlive WMU6500FS, i think SAMBA based

we are on a DHCP network

any ideas??? how to access....(NTFS working on the express card)

 

paradigm018,
I didn't do anything special. When I go to Places/Network my NAS shows up along with other computers on my network. I have the Synology 209+II. Can you see other computers on your network?

 

Could you show me what the EasyBCD section of boot code would be in order to add a linux kernel to the Windows boot menu? I tried finding that info online back when Vista was released and couldn't. Thank you.

 

nopes..walterd.....couldnt access NAS

but could browse the web

i have WPA2 with AES...and ike i said a total noobie as far as coming along with linux and it's subtypes.....should i have done something differently

 

Starcub,
This is what the boot entry looks like:
Name: NeoSmart Linux
BCD ID: {8718a3b0-b417-11dd-be96-b70a805303e6}
Drive: C:\
Bootloader Path: \NST\AutoNeoGrub0.mbr

You don't realy need this. If you go to the NeoSmart forums:
The NeoSmart Forums
and look under the EasyBSD 2 Beta forum, do a search for linux, and you should be able to find the directions. If I remember correctly, all you had to do is select the Linux/BSD tab and fill in the info. Note, this is new since Vista came out.

 

Paradigm018,
I don't know of anything you should have done different. However, there is a newer version of Ubuntu now, 10.04. You may want to try that and see what happens. Also, can you connect your NAS to your router via cable, or is it only wireless? If you can do either, try whichever one you haven't tried and see if that makes a difference. Do you have any other computers connected to your network? If so, can linux see them?

 

If you do not need gaming, I highly recommend VMWare's VMWorkstation. VMPlayer is free, and can be used to create VM's. For the most part, we have found a VM is only about 2% slower than running the real thing., but has MANY advantages (including snapshots). It worth noting that running a VM without AntiVirus is a lot faster than the real thing with.

 

I take at look at that forum, thank you.